Y. Kanan wrote:NRao wrote:India cannot straddle this divide.
Why not? Neutrality has been working brilliantly for us over the last year.
Do you really think either the Americans, EU, or the UK on one side and Russia (and perhaps China) on the other feel India has been impartial/neutral?
Consider a long queue of Americans (Nuland, Dalip Singh, Biden .... Yelen), EU (van der Layen), and finally, Boris Johnson considered India very partial.
Russia on her part has been selling oil at a price to keep India within the Russian orbit. And, has been very busy trying to patch up relations between India and China. Hardly the behavior of a nation that feels India can be impartial.
IMO, neutrality is just an appearance. Once one side gets the upper hand India will dance to their tune - which is what I meant by cannot straddle this divide.
As long as India imports some 70-80% of its energy needs, wants to be a pole, has no economy to talk about (per capita GDP stuck at some 150th - of 194), and a military that cannot throw her weight beyond a restricted area and that too for a few weeks, there is not much India can do, India IMO has only her diplomats to rely on. And, that cannot last for too long in the violent atmosphere of a world reorder.
I have said this before, what is happening today is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. I fully expect things to get really bad.